Community activist Quannel X organized a protest against the handling of the Tolan case.

Photo By Melissa Phillip/Chronicle

Marian Tolan, left, her husband, Bobby Tolan, center, and their attorney, Geoffrey Berg, attended a Bellaire City Council meeting after the shooting.

Photo By The Tolan family

Tolan was hospitalized in the intensive-care unit at Ben Taub General Hospital after the shooting.

Photo By Michael Paulsen/Chronicle

Bobby Tolan makes a statement during a news conference outside of the home where his son Robert Tolan was shot.

Photo By Michael Paulsen/Chronicle

During a news conference on the case, a photograph of victim Robert Tolan sits outside his family home, where he was shot.

Photo By Bellaire police

Bellaire police Sgt. Jeff Cotton joined the Bellaire Police Department in September 1998.

Photo By Michael Paulsen/Chronicle

Lawyers try to comfort the victim's father, Bobby Tolan, a retired major league baseball player

Photo By Michael Paulsen/Chronicle

With Tolan's father, attorney George Gibson discusses the case with the media.

Photo By Michael Paulsen/Chronicle

Attorney Geoffrey Berg points to a paper bag containing a bottle of champagne that was supposed to be used at the Tolan family's New Year's Eve celebration.

Photo By Michael Paulsen/Chronicle

Blood marks and fast-food trash lead to the family home's entrance, where Tolan was shot in the chest. Tolan and his cousin were returning from a fast-food run before the chaos.

In a pained and tearful recounting, Marian Tolan explained what happened in 2008 when her unarmed son, Robbie Tolan, was shot in the driveway of their Bellaire home.

She explained how the officer was indicted, but acquitted. How the family's federal civil case was set aside. And how a federal appeals court turned the claim away and recently declined to reconsider.

She spoke during a community dialogue on racism and white supremacy presented by Community Just Us Coalition at the Shrine of the Black Madonna. The event marked the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and the Rev. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech.

The local group was organized out of outrage about the 2012 Trayvon Martin shooting in Florida.

"If white people came out of their house and said: 'This is a mistake. This is ludicrous. This is my car. This is my son,' the police officers would have apologized and they wouldn't have even asked for identification," Marian Tolan told several dozen people in attendance.

"After Robbie was shot, they immediately ran a background check on him because certainly he has to be a criminal. That's racist."

Tolan said that after the shooting, neighbors said the family "put a blemish" on the neighborhood.

"This is a tremendous learning experience for our whole family," she said.

King's speech opened with a critique on the promise of America - a century after the Emancipation Proclamation — saying black people "refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. … Now it is time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood."

The Houston gathering, which opened to the beat of a drummer, included brief sessions about white supremacy, "white skin privilege" and confronting stereotypes.

Durce Muhammad, a member of the Nation of Islam who helped organized the event, reminded the audience of the "evil triplets of militarism, inordinate materialism and racism" that King spoke about before his death.